


not going to sit and wait

by QuickSilverFox3



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Friendship/Love, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, Pre-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 09:46:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28954425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuickSilverFox3/pseuds/QuickSilverFox3
Summary: George knows Molly, his own mother, doesn't see him when she looks at him. She sees a dead man.
Relationships: Fred Weasley & George Weasley, Lee Jordan/George Weasley
Comments: 1
Kudos: 29
Collections: International Wizarding School Competition - Ilvermorny





	not going to sit and wait

**Author's Note:**

> Writen for IWSC competition on ff.net

“G—”

The shout died the instant it began, Mum’s mouth twisting shut with an emotion George couldn’t name as she almost seemed to shrink in on herself, but only for a moment. He felt a cold certainty settle in his stomach, shoulders tensing as an ache slipped across his back with the pressure. She’s done it again. 

The name she had been about to call—furious and indignant, fire in her eyes matching the blaze of her hair—wasn’t George’s, although it started with the same letter: a harsh click in the back of her throat rather than the almost hiss for him. Mum had looked at him and seen the ghost of the men she expected him to be like.

Anger burned low in his stomach. His throat closed as he turned away from her, unwilling to see the grief that splashed across her face, new and as raw as ever, a staple of their life, their entire childhood. George had learned early that time would do nothing to smooth over the exposed edges of her pain, and only fueled his hate for a man he would never meet. 

“Honestly woman.” George could see the slight tremor in Fred’s hands, the quill he held fluttering with the inadvertent movement, but his voice was deliberately light. “You call yourself our mother.”

Mum scoffed at him, and retreated into the kitchen to the symphony of pans clattering, her cursing reduced to a low undercurrent. Fred set his parchment down deliberately, waiting for George to look at him. 

George’s hands were curled into fists, nails biting into his palms further with every trembling breath. His head was bowed in a parody of prayer, but his eyes were open, staring at the mended patch on the knee of his jeans. It had been Charlie that had torn them, waltzing back in one day, covered in a thick coating of mud from his neck downwards, a black eye and a grin that spoke of yet another family Mum needed to apologise to for her son’s behaviour. The stitches were neat and uniform, attaching the lighter fabric to the dark securely. 

“You know she doesn’t mean anything by it, Georgie,” Fred said, leaning forward with a creak of the sofa springs. “It’s just a mistake.”

“How many times is she going to keep making the same mistake, Fred?” George hissed. He fought to keep his voice low against the rising tide of anger in his chest, working the edge of a nail beneath the stitches of the patch. “She doesn’t know who I am, just some echo of her brother that she wants me to be.”

“That’s not true.” The words rang false even as Fred said them and they both knew that. Fred twisted away with a grimace. 

They sat in silence for a moment, listening to the noise of the house around them. The pipes groaned along with the ghoul in the attic. The creaks echoed through the unusually silent house with the rest of the family tucked into the sanctuaries of their bedrooms, or denoted on the clock as being at work. 

“I’m not Gideon Prewett,” George said, voice low and bitter. Years of resentment, of looks that never seemed to quite settle on him, of disappointment as he failed to live up to the pedestal that Mum expected him to reach for no other reason than she thought he would more like Gideon. “You aren’t Fabian Prewett. We’re just us. Why can’t she see that?”

“Patience,” Fred murmured, the word bitter and twisted. “Just got to wait it out, I guess.”

“Yeah.” George forced a breath out through gritted teeth, deliberately uncurling his fingers and pressing himself back into the sofa. He could feel the dip of the fabric beneath him, shoulders twisting to compensate as he sat slightly off kilter to the divot. “But how much longer are we going to have to wait?”

“We’re nearly seventeen. We can move out soon, start our shop,” Fred whispered, casting a glance towards the shut kitchen door as if the mere mention would summon Mum’s fury once more.

“I know. I know.”

George tipped his head back and stared at the bundles of drying herbs that hung from the rafters. He could feel the walls press in around him. Wait, nothing to do but wait and carry the burden of history pressing down on him. Fred picked the quill back up, a gentle scratching sound accompanying his writing.

“Fred?”

“Hmmm?”

“Mind if I invite Lee over tonight?”

Fred glanced up with a smirk. “I’m sure I can survive a night in Charlie’s room. Nearly got the problems worked out for the formula for the Puking Pastilles so that’ll keep me busy.”

“Thank you.” George closed his eyes. He started plotting out the note he would send to Lee, knowing the other boy had transport in the form of his older brother—who was more than willing to be bribed with the twin’s modified sweets—and his new Apparition license after four attempts in as many years. 

⁂

George was teetering on the edge of sleep, propped up against the headboard with an order form lying in his lap, when he heard the warning creak of the stair. He had barely a moment to shove the parchment beneath the pillow before the door swung open, and Mum stepped into the room, basket balanced on her hip.

He flinched away from the look of horror, the look of sheer  _ disgust _ that crossed over her face when she caught sight of Lee asleep behind him. George knew what the other boy looked like: chest bare to reveal the gold lined tattoo on his bicep, the piercings on his chest, sheet tangled around his hips and his hand resting on George’s thigh, dark against his pale freckled skin. 

“Mum,” George whispered, his plea dying in the frosty air as she turned away, eyes cold and shut the door with a click that sounded like a death knell. The grief that twisted through George’s chest was nothing new—it was as familiar to him as the gentle sighs of the house settling around him—but it cut deeper this time, settling across his shoulders with a certain finality. 

“She didn’t look happy," Lee murmured, his voice rough with sleep. Lee pushed himself up using George's thigh then pulled the other boy to lie against his chest, resting his chin on the top of George's head.

“Disappointed I’m not more like Gideon,” George spat, shifting so he could feel the gentle beat of Lee’s heart, unhurried and steady. “It’s nothing new.”

“Doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Lee murmured, kissing the top of George’s head. “You can’t control what she thinks or who she wants you to be, unfair as it is.”

George hummed quietly in acknowledgement. Somehow, hearing it out loud from someone who wasn’t part of that twisted mess was a balm on an open wound he had been ignoring for so long. 

“Been waiting all my life for her to see me and Fred, rather than Gideon and Fabian.”

“History is a heavy burden to compete with.” Lee gently ran his fingers through George’s hair, teasing the tousled strands into some semblance of order. “It’s no wonder you’re tired of waiting.”

“When we leave,” George shifted to meet his gaze. One of Lee’s piercings pressed into his cheek for a moment before they both moved into a more comfortable position—practiced from both piling into the same single Hogwarts bed— and remained steady. “And we are going to leave this mausoleum, do you want to come with us?”

“Of course.” Lee bent down to kiss George’s forehead then his lips, soft and quick, mouth curled into a grin. “Told you back in our first shared detention, you’re stuck with me. Both of you, Fred and George.”

The moment was broken as George yawned, a shiver rattling up his spine then back down to his toes. Lee laughed, muffling the noise by burying his face in George’s hair. “Get some more sleep. Come on.”

George reached down, tugging the loose blanket up around them both, curling into Lee’s chest as the other’s arms settled around his hips, holding him close.

He turned away from the closed door, and listened to Lee breathe next to him, the noise slipping back into the slow repetitions of sleep, knowing his wait was finally drawing to a close.


End file.
